@ Roger #142

I urge you, Mr. Elder Statesman, to provide a seminar on your nuanced views of international finance at the next VanCity AGM. They are, after all, involved in regional project financing.

I would, however, advise you to wear a neck guard.

I should say a MINIMUM of 33’/10m ROW for a dedicted street in Vancouver.

MB @ 154 – all worthy ideas worth exploring, especially decoupling on-site parking from lots. If we as a society are willing to decrease or eliminate on-site parking form multi-family housing, why mnot for lower density forms and neighbourhoods as well? Neighbourhood NIMYism is the reason, I’d suggest.

This would be a good studio or thesis project for a UBC student, for sure. I think it would have to be done on a block basis, don’t you?

On your last point, Roger is Roger, and I am growing to listen more closely to his deeper frustrations, as perhaps you might want to as well. His wrath is a terrible thing (and I have felt it for sure!) but, I find, it is almost always embedded in principle and substantial experience.

@Everyman // Mar 21, 2012 at 8:26 am

“The street tree dataset includes a listing of all public trees on boulevards in the City of Vancouver and provides tree location, species and other characteristics. Park trees and private trees are not included in the inventory.”
http://data.vancouver.ca/datacatalogue/streetTrees.htm
“Note: due to the size of the inventory, the dataset has been broken-up into separate files grouped by neighborhood. street tree dataset includes a listing of all public trees on boulevards in the City of Vancouver and provides tree location, species and other characteristics. Park trees and private trees are not included in the inventory.
Note: due to the size of the inventory, the dataset has been broken-up into separate files grouped by neighborhood. ”
[ Even then the files are huge. You might try CSV for reading into any database. XML for mapping, JSON for Javascript etc. Sort by street or species
and block and extract the narrow local data you want into another database set.]

4 formats
1 Vancouver Street Trees (XML)
2 Vancouver Street Trees (JSON)
3 Vancouver Street Trees (CSV) CSV format
4 Vancouver Street Trees (XLS) Excel spreadsheet (XLS)

Data listed are :
Attributes
TREE_ID CIVIC_NUMBER STD_STREET NEIGHBOURHOOD_NAME CELL ON_STREET ON_STREET_BLOCK STREET_SIDE_NAME ASSIGNED HEIGHT_RANGE_ID DIAMETER DATE_PLANTED PLANT_AREA ROOT_BARRIER CURB CULTIVAR_NAME GENUS_NAME SPECIES_NAME COMMON_NAME
Height_Range and Diameter find big and/or tall trees. Which indicates age in some species.
I wish there were agriculturally economic tress as walnuts, edible chestnuts, apple, pear, peach, edible cherry, avocado, coconut and palm trees.
I just love the extra savour of PAHs on my tree fruit. 😉

@Julie #148:

“I am not trying to gloat or play or suggest I think condo living is terrible.”

Fair enough.

“All I am suggesting is that the housing solutions being offered for Vancouver’s affordability problem are not that compelling.”

I am skeptical that more condos or the adoption of row housing, (which I think could be quite nice) will necessarily result in greater affordability. In that context, I suppose my point is that there are reasons why someone might chose to live in a condo which are not related (primarily, anyway) to affordability.

I think most if not of us want attactive options for families with children here in Vancouver. But I think unless one is exceptionally well off, the dream of owning a single family house here is not only remote, it may be on its way to becoming seriously outdated.

Families like the ones you describe live quite well in brownstones (in Brooklyn Heights) and in other forms of attached and stacked multi-family housing, including the various stacked forms the Geller has described in Montreal. And these are wonderful, livable urban places.

As Fabula recently noted elsewhere, it is legal to permit 3 dwellings on every “single” family lot in Vancouver now, with legal basement suites and laneway houses. Thanks in large part to initiatives undertaken during Brent Toderian’s regime as DOP. I’d like to think we might get 3 or perhaps 4 units per lot without resorting to dark basements. Something along the lines of what MB has been suggesting, perhaps.

The corollary – indeed, a prerequisite – to acceptable densification is, of course, that there must be adequate community amenities to provide alternatives to all those private yards, in a variety of scales and locations.

MB #162 – now you are talking. I am not asking for a 75×120 foot lot, like I had as a kid… I am just looking for a way out of the strata/end of life nightmares, some modest accommodations and some civility. If that means co-housing or duplexes or ???????- let’s consider that at least as a viable option.

@MB 162-The assumption underlying your comments, and others here, is that almost everyone works in Vancouver. They don’t. Seems that those who get the best of both worlds are the folks who live and work outside of this exalted burg. Better house, better commute, bigger yard etc.

Will reply to MB + as soon as I have time. Good trhoughts.

Did numbers for a project in Surrey City Centre yesterday. Interesting re: affordability. Land cost is $35/sf. Construction a bit less than Van at $200/sf so selling at $310. A 3 bed 1450sf TH sells for +/-$450,000. Not cheap but more affordable than Van at $700,00 for the same thing.

Pete McMartin has an interesting view on what affordablity is about this AM.

@ Roger #166

I can assure you that I am not depressed, nor am I a shill.

However, I have seen Inside Job and get it.

When your insults include autism, you have crossed a line. I know an autistic fellow. Wouldn’t harm a silverfish. Liam may flop on the floor and drool, but he can also tell you what day of the week August 19th 2239 falls on.

He and his single dad have my sincere respect.

@Bill McCreery-McMartin’s column seemed directed exactly against the attitude I pointed out earlier. That somehow living in the suburbs is “second prize” for those not fortunate enough to live in the overpriced, panhandler-ridden utopia that is Vancouver. I can assure those smug mugs that there are plenty of suburbanites like McMartin who don’t feel hard done by.

@Frank Ducote 172
For some reason I don’t expect that Frances is that parochial, but perhaps she can clarify.

And perhaps that kind of thinking, that Vancouver’s rather small area is somehow the centre of the universe, is part of the problem. I hear you can shout across Boundary and the savage tribes in Burnaby can hear you ; )

175 posts later and nobody feels the issue of foreign ownership should even be raised by this panel? No wonder it will be doomed to failure.

brilliant @ #175

Conflict of interest?

So are Geller and his round table of architects: everyone wants in on the actions, as for integrity and ethics no one cares anymore . . .

THIS IS PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT THREAD I’VE READ IN THE LAST THREE YEARS!

@ MARY 8, your observation:

” ” … a total loss of trust for City Hall professional staff” makes me. ..more than sad, more than frustrated. [It’s to the point of mutiny]. But first: professional staff are regularly, consistently prevented from exercising their professional knowledge”.”

and your following comments reveal the real personal loss of professional integrity you and your colleagues experience on a daily basis with respect to your inabilities to properly provide your professional guidance with respect to planning matters in the City of Vancouver. I believe you’ve commented in a similar vein in the past. Thank you for having the courage to do so. The subversion you describe of the responsible professional and ethical planning process is a devastating condemnation of the present way of ‘doing business’ at Vancouver City Hall.

The controversial Mayor’s and City Manager’s office renovation of a couple of years ago were the tip of the iceberg. It’s not just Mike Magee, he has a horde of other enablers occupying that additional space, who on a daily basis turn out those:

“Reports delayed, re-written to the point of complete unrecognizability of the recommendations; disregard for long standing policy (unless of course it supports a particular pet idea)”.

And:

“REAL public participation, even the housing agenda would have made more progress without the bumbling polititicization of rezoning decisions and given special treatment to the favoured ones.”

A number of people, including myself, have been commenting on these perversions of the civic democratic process for some time. These were the major motivators for my running for Council. In order to make the changes necessary to have a truly “progressive” government in Vancouver’s City Hall you, Mary, and your colleagues will hopefully realize that your first professional duty is to the citizens of Vancouver and not your supposed political masters.

I hope you and your colleagues will find ways to work with those concerned citizens who have taken the time and made the effort to inform themselves on civic issues, and those who in the future who can also be encouraged to do so.

The comments here of Lewis, Silly Season, brilliant, Mira, Chris B, Don Bartel, Everyman and tf validate the commitment of a host of other Vancouverites who want to work cooperatively together with you and your Planning Department colleagues to create a truly wonderful sustainable City of sustainable neighbourhoods.

You, many others across this City, and I know that if our city is to fulfill its potential we must work constructively, positively, honestly and openly together to achieve that end. I look forward to dong so constructively and discretely in the near term.

Here is the final paragraph quote from the Vancouver City Planning Commission’s “Sustainable City of Sustainable Neighbourhoods Project” final report submitted to Council in August of 2011:

“In the course of the project we heard many inspirational ideas from citizen groups, but our
overwhelming impression is that a recommendation that the City spearhead any of these
actions would be counter to their intention. A process initiated and managed by the City is
not what is wanted or needed. There have been many of these and, almost without
exception, they have not achieved the desired results identified by our participants. There
may, indeed, be an argument for stepping back from the current intensive, exhaustive and
highly institutionalized engagement processes currently undertaken by the City. Instead, it
might be more appropriate for the City to take a supporting role in neighbourhood-initiated
efforts to define themselves and shape their own unique identity.”

If that is not a condemnation of the current civic engagement process and indeed a call for help, what is? And it should not be lost that this report is focused on achieving a “sustainable City of sustainable neighbourhoods”, the very thing Vision Vancouver is supposedly trying to achieve. Your comment Mary that the:

“… and given special treatment to the favoured ones”

is particularly telling especially in light of the recent revelations of the sources of campaign donations by the three major civic parties in Vancouver. There have been a lot of people drinking the “kool-aid”. I’ve seen it close up in my own civic interactions over many years. Perhaps the first thing needed is a good cleansing shower and then let’s get back to work building this very special city we know as Vancouver.

Bill Mc @ #179

Before we start blaming staff remember public hearings usually are attended by at most two or three hundred agitated people needing attention and with an axe to grind. In the case of Mount Pleasant that is out of a population of a probable adult voting age of 15/16,000 out of 23,615 total pop (that, BTW, is dropping over the previous five years).

So staff has many conflicting issues to juggle. Having said that, I am no fan of the city’s planning department: most of the time I have had no problem but occasionally they let me down badly (as with an issue over architect’s copyright).

I take all the what the people want talk with a pinch of salt understanding from decades of experience that it is what a small group wants, or, indeed some over agitated individual with an axe to grind wants.

Good urban design is not mob design.

There are no recent examples of good urban design in the city. The UD dept. at city hall likes to invoke the sea wall cycle/walk as their achievement but it is just a lineal pathway, lacking spatial pauses and amenity.

IMO the best example of local UD is Pigeon Park, (no I am not being factious). Over the decades I watched that place grow from a rubby drug suppository blocking the entrance to the Bank of Montreal to an attractive, well used, urban place.

FCN and NEFC are examples of thoughtless urban design (Paris Place excepting): the planners were more intent upon getting a (very expensive to join) community centre and (an equally expensive) kindergarten than adding to our concept of the public realm. Any concept of a network of walking spaces interconnecting the city across Pacific Boulevard was never considered.

All modern cities are hampered by our notion of land ownership wherein the spaces between buildings, the figure ground, is still private property usually designed for, keep off, low maintenance.

Unfortunately the current urban debate is hampered by a few very aggressive voices with a one-track agenda against towers: the barrenness of which will only become evident if they get their way.

. . . pity!

Perceptive observation MB. Yes elected politicians are elected and should impose “a political will” on staff and the electorate. However, the problems arise when there is a major disconnect between the elected, the electors (for purposes of this conversation I limit those to citizens who have taken the time to inform themselves with respect to civic issues) and staff. Clearly in Vancouver today there is a major disconnect between the elected, and electors and staff.

What needs to be established is why this disconnect is occurring. Councillor Meggs is clearly searching for a way out of the RIZE quagmire they’ve gotten themselves into, but is there one?

When you are bought and paid for by those who got you elected, they expect payback. Look at the Vision Vancouver donors’ list. A developer donates big time. They are expecting payback. One of the biggest donor, other than unions, their, friends and (former) partners is another example. They got immediate payback in the form of two now you didn’t notice it, and by God they’ve slipped another one through…, and just before and after the election by gosh.

This is not planning. It is not city building. It is not a healthy process of bringing neighbours together to create healthy communities. What this Vision Vancouver Council are doing with their continued insistence on yet more one off spot rezonings is to pay off their political financiers in the guise of creating various justifications of densifying Vancouver so we can save ourselves from ourselves.

This crowd has put over the biggest con job I have ever witnessed.

MB@184 – I strongly agree with your second paragraph above. Fabula’s blog is most informative when posters aren’t simply ranting about this or that party from their own political bias, but instead talks to the issues facing Vancouver in an open’minded and collegial way.

MB and Frank, my comments are my own. I do not speak for the NPA. I also have said I doubt I will run again so I hope you and others will take my point of view as that of an interested and concerned citizen, which I always have been. I do try to “rise above”, but occasionally I become so frustrated with this lot that I am compelled to criticize them. Someone has to.

On the other hand I trust you realize that I hope, the majority of my comments:

“… talk to the issues facing Vancouver in an open’minded and collegial way”.

I also must agree that:

“… a little neutrality could be brought to the “healthy process of bringing neighbours together to create healthy communities”.”

Just to let you know I wrote Cllrs. Jang and Meggs when they announced the affordable housing initiative in December and offered to work with them on it. I believe I have some valuable experience, expertise and perspective to be able to make a worthwhile contribution. They have not responded, even with a thank you, but no thanks. I also applied to sit on 4 civic advisory boards and was not appointed to any.

I spoke with Commissioner Barnes at the Trout Lake opening and told her I liked her more positive approach as Chair, and thought there might be some opportunities to break down the political barriers. She agreed. But, this doesn’t seem to be happening. This past week we get Aaron Jasper badmouthing George Wainborn and Andy Livingston. When I was on Park Board, although we were in different political parties I quickly learned to respect these gentlemen and I have a great respect to their commitment over decades to our City as well as their accomplishments.

A great deal of the conceptual and technical discussions here results because of some current political situation or initiative (“How to create lower-cost housing”, the Rize spot rezoning”, etc.). You can have lots of nice congenial conversations that avoid the politics of the situation and perhaps they’ll make you feel good, but they will do absolutely nothing to solve or improve the problem until the political realities are confronted.

I enjoy the conceptual and technical discussions, but I also want to see some real positive change. Keeping one’s head buried in sand because one doesn’t like to include the impact politics play in urban affairs is not who I am. And it will ultimately not result in any significant change or improvement. If the City continues down the present road with respect to planning and development a great deal of harm with be the result and the quality of our urban environment will be seriously compromised.

Bill – amen, brother.

Bill – WRT to your point A: 18-20′ for 2 retail floors is well nigh impossible. They need about 4m/12-13′ each, which gets to 25′ as proposed, for ductwork, reasonable ceiling height, etc.

Further, 8′-6″ floor to floor for multi-family residential is not “more typical”, as you say. 9′ is a reasonable minimum, but there are a lot of 10′ floor to floor heights on the market, so this range is much more today’s norm.

Won’t comment on your other points.

Frank, my apology, I intended when speaking about floor to floor heights to be using the actual floor to floor heights of the original RIZE 2010 proposal and the current one. I was not entirely accurate. Here are the numbers as proposed:

– typical floor to floor, 2010: 8′-6″; 2012: 9′-4″;

– retail floor to floor, 23′-5″+19′-1″; 26′-0″+23′-4″;

– overall building height, 66.9m; 78.12m = a reduction in height of 37′-5″ or 4.4 floors @ 8′-6″ or 4 floors @ 9′-4″.

I’m suggesting the project should go back to it’s original heights and reduce by 2 to 3 floors, eliminate the 21′-5″ double height penthouse to a more realistic 12′-0″ (which then only counts one FSR instead of the two if over 12′ – is the penthouse counted twice I wonder?). I suspect it may be possible to reduce the heights of the retail another foot or two as well.

If these things are accomplished the project will be less out of scale and intrusive in the Mt. Pleasant neighbourhood and will be more affordable and therefore more in keeping with the Mt. Pleasant population. Presumably this might be a worthwhile objective since affordable housing is one of the City’s primary goals this term.

This will also be an acknowledgement that the City will move towards MB’s hoped for “in-depth planning and community consultation process” and to “dovetail” better “with historic precedence”.